I’ve been receiving messages - kind messages - of condolence. I think it’s brave to send messages, because the thing is with loss - what do you say?
I still call my brother. I am sure I am bothering him. I’m checking in on him. I am worried. I am right to be worried. Helplessness in the face of loss is very real.
One of the messages that really rang true was one from a dear writing colleague friend from New Jersey. She wrote,
I read your beautiful piece about your nephew--what an incredible soul. Thank you for sharing his and your family's story. I've been thinking of you a lot and I'm sending so much love as you all navigate this impossible time.
“Impossible time” yes that’s what it is. This is an impossible time. Death feels impossible. War feels impossible. Having a son in the army feels completely impossible. Yet it’s real and I need to navigate it.
Almost a week ago I had my graduation for my MA at the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar Ilan University. I didn’t feel like going, but I went because I wanted to see my fellow classmates. I posted a picture of some of my dear classmates and I on social media in our graduation gowns. Someone commented something like - it’s good to see you smiling. This made me think we smile in impossible times. That’s what we do.
At the graduation the band played HaBayta - a Hebrew song of longing for the hostages to come home. The graduating philosophy student who spoke tearfully paid tribute to his nephews serving. The only reason we could sit safely in the auditorium. Paid tribute to why we study humanities — to speak up and share what we learn as humans — that we are all humans. That if we all understood our human connection deeply perhaps we could prevent war.
He went from a successful Hi-Tec position to teaching his passion - philosophy.
Universities are wonderful vistas of scholarship and research, which I bless everyday as I research and question periods of history, but I left the graduation puzzled. I wondered why the speech that was the most memorable and relatable was the graduating student’s speech.
This made me realize how much I love having a street education. I like to speak to people who make our society run smoothly - the street cleaner, the corner shop owner, the cafe barista (super important in making our society run smoothly). The everyday people you smile at and say hello to. My children are embarrassed how I speak to everyone. I’m just curious. I want to make sense of the world around me. I want to know what people think.
It made me realize how I’m into kitchen wisdom. Wisdom gained from living life in a family - with real bickering, from grandmothers who don’t read or write. Wisdom from cooking meals, watching yeast rise, using the wrong flour and having to make the sambusek pastry all over again.
It made me realize how as a writer I write to connect. To fling my voice and ideas into the marketplace of people from a stall on which I would place a sign - 43 year old mother of four boys, Iraqi Jewish from Australia, born to immigrant parents, struggles with identity, belonging, and all other very human neuroses. Dreams of a Middle Eastern Golden age. Is idealistic to a fault, but wonders why every person isn’t obsessed with fighting their inner war of dark and light. Wonders how we can nurture the truth that we are all created in the image of God.
I own my war is real. Inside of me. I can’t pretend I’m all loving.
Love requires boundaries I have learned (that’s the advantage of turning 40 - a wisdom well worth the wrinkles).
Hate requires even more boundaries - it’s a red flaming flag that I am on the wrong track. Hate needs to be transformed.
That every person is in the image of God is something I struggle with when I imagine a Hamas terrorist. It makes God feel very scary. I wonder if I have that evil in me. It makes me scared of myself.
Is there a part of God we need to kill off? What do we do with humans who break the code of humanity?
I am saying what I am thinking. Have been thinking for months. What isn’t meant to be said aloud.
War does that.
Losing a nephew does that. Makes one lose sight of normalcy. There is no such thing. These are impossible times, and I have impossible questions.
My sister-in-law related at my nephew’s shloshim - the month mark since passing, where a gravestone is placed on the burial site, that Neriya was determined to smile when the family went to Australia recently during the war to avoid the stress of rocket sirens on their trips to the hospital in Tel Aviv for medical treatment. He decided that even if he didn’t feel like it, he would smile because that would lift his and others’ spirits. All I could think of was how impossible it must have felt to smile, how do you smile when you are in pain, emotional and physical pain as a fourteen year old with brain cancer?
My sister-in-law said smiling made him feel better.
Neriya knew what most adults don’t dare admit that in impossible times we can still grow joy.
Impossible joy still grows in war. Still grows when my son’s girlfriend’s brother was killed in a motorbike accident with a truck in Sri Lanka two weeks ago.
Because there is a baby’s smile. There is the single bunch of grapes hanging from the vines at cafe’s stone entrance. Look up, there is the small, sun blushed apricots in the community garden, the bunches of wish-they-were-chocolate brown carobs hanging over the street pavement, and the white star jasmine perfuming the early morning air. There are the first green olives, and there are clusters of majestic crowned pomegranates on the tree by my front door. There is a single, small eggplant growing in my garden.
On Saturday afternoon, the Jewish Sabbath, there is a little girl in a red dress is dancing on top of a weathered street piano by the mesila, the Jerusalem train track turned into a trendy walking path. Her father and mother are sitting at the piano playing a tune and she is lifting her arms to the heavens and back down, and up again, twirling to the music of her parents, of the street, of her life, and I stand and watch from the side, mesmerized by her impossible innocence.
Who would believe so much joy can still grow in a Middle Eastern summer so hot that bonfires are not allowed to be lit. It is an impossible joy. But it exists side by side with all the grief.
Author Life Notes….
Latest Article - TOI Blog - Why I Am Not Protesting - This is a raw and real and vulnerable piece - but I will highlight the Star Wars passages within it because it takes bravery to face our hate and anger. It takes patience and courage to change. Unity and dialogue is an act of strength, and self and communal growth.
“Anger, fear, aggression. The dark side are they. Once you start down the dark path forever will it dominate your destiny.” —-Yoda Return of the Jedi
EMPEROR: Good. I can feel your anger. I am defenseless. Take your weapon! Strike me down with all your hatred, and your journey towards the dark side will be complete.
“Is the dark side stronger?” Luke asks.
“No, no, no,” Yoda assures him. “Quicker, easier, more seductive.”
What is Inspiring - The hostage families call for a Week of Goodness
Redeeming our hostages through good deeds
The families of all the hostages have been running to the ends of the earth to do everything possible to help save our loved ones. But we have yet to see the result we want. We have decided to dedicate one week - from July 14th to July 21st - to surge goodness into the world.
Below are some of the efforts we will be undertaking - volunteering, studying, giving charity, praying, singing, and more. Join us, or commit to your own benevolent actions. We are living in a fractured period, and our beloved hostages are in unimaginable darkness. Help us to repair and bring more light into the world.
Do check the site out here. Do join this inspired, humane effort to heal the darkness, and make the world a better place around us — one deed at a time.
Latest This is Not a Cholent Book Review
An excerpt from This is Not a Cholent Sydney Taylor Schmooze Review by Eva Weiss.
“The diversity and shared traditions of Jewish heritage and communities are at the heart of the narrative and in the brightly colored, unfussy illustrations. The careful and thoughtful writing makes the story equally accessible to a full range of readers, from religiously observant to secular Jews. It could also serve as a sensitive introduction to Jewish tradition that would broaden the horizons of non-Jewish readers. The storyline offers a sturdy and sensitive model of a child determined to to be true and proud in sharing her family heritage. Amira overcomes her own doubts. Reassured by her grandmother, she succeeds in educating the adults in her community. The story has a well-earned happy ending. This book is gently and authentically educational for children and adult readers of all backgrounds.”
Read the full review here.
For more about This is Not a Cholent click here.
What I’ve been teaching - Food & Memory Writing Workshop
I recently ran this workshop and prepped for it by baking my Iraqi Jewish grandmother’s cheese sambusek. It was really wonderful to explore the meaning and stories of food in our lives. Food is such a powerful, primal symbol of being human. A language that we all share.
My recipe based on my grandmother’s recipe for cheese sambusek - here.
Thanks as always for reading my words, joining my journey!
Sarah
For more about me and my writing visit my website www.sarahsassoon.com
To support my work please consider buying my children’s books, the award winning Shoham’s Bangle, and my latest This is Not a Cholent. My mission is to spread and educate about Jewish Middle Eastern culture.
Read my free online, award winning poetry collection, published by Harbor Review - This is Why We Don’t Look Back.
Note - My Substack will be fortnightly. Maybe more often…maybe less, I appreciate all comments, all conversations, and all sharing.
Further - All mistakes are proof that I am human, and this is not an AI publication.